Alexander Hamilton

January 11, 1755 – July 12, 1804

First Secretary of the Treasury and champion of a strong federal government.

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Alexander Hamilton began life about as far from power as an American founder could. He was born on the Caribbean island of Nevis, in 1755 or 1757, to parents who were not married; his father abandoned the family and his mother died when he was a boy, leaving him orphaned and poor. Working as a teenage clerk in the islands, he so impressed local merchants with his intelligence and drive that they raised money to send him to New York for an education. He was studying at King's College, now Columbia, when the Revolution swept him up. Hamilton joined the fight early, formed an artillery company, and soon caught the eye of George Washington, who in 1777 made him a trusted aide-de-camp. For years Hamilton was the general's right hand, writing letters and orders and helping run the war. Restless for glory of his own, he won command of troops at the Battle of Yorktown in 1781, leading a daring nighttime bayonet charge that helped force the British surrender. Along the way he married Elizabeth Schuyler, from a powerful New York family, a partnership that anchored the rest of his life. Explore the war in the American Revolution journey. After the war Hamilton became convinced that the country's first government, the Articles of Confederation, was far too weak to survive. He was a delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1787, where he argued for a strong national government, though his own ideas were more extreme than most delegates would accept. His greatest contribution came afterward, in the fight to ratify the new Constitution: with James Madison and John Jay he wrote The Federalist Papers, a set of 85 essays explaining and defending the plan. Hamilton wrote the majority of them, roughly 51, and they remain one of the finest works of political thinking ever produced in America. Follow that story in the U.S. Constitution journey. When Washington became President, he named Hamilton the first Secretary of the Treasury, and it was here that Hamilton did his most lasting work. The new nation was drowning in Revolutionary War debt and had little credit. In a series of bold reports, Hamilton proposed that the federal government pay its debts in full and take over the states' war debts too, tying the wealthy and the states to the success of the national government. To settle a bitter fight over this plan, he struck the Compromise of 1790 with Thomas Jefferson and Madison over dinner, trading his debt program for placing the permanent capital on the Potomac. He then created the First Bank of the United States and pushed to encourage American factories and industry. Hamilton's vision put him on a collision course with Jefferson and Madison, who feared he was building a government too strong and too friendly to the rich. Hamilton read the Constitution broadly, arguing it granted powers beyond those spelled out word for word; Jefferson read it strictly. Out of that clash grew the nation's first political parties, with Hamilton leading the Federalists. He remained a powerful force even after leaving the Treasury in 1795, shaping policy and feuding with rivals, including within his own party. His pride and sharp tongue eventually proved fatal. Years of political warfare with Aaron Burr came to a head in 1804, when Burr, having lost the New York governor's race, demanded satisfaction for insults he blamed on Hamilton. The two met in a duel at Weehawken, New Jersey, on July 11, 1804. Hamilton was shot and died the next day. He was not yet fifty. For an immigrant orphan, Hamilton left an enormous mark: the banking, credit, and financial systems he designed became the foundation of the American economy, and his belief in a vigorous national government still shapes debates today.

Alexander Hamilton

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